


Forever Autumn

by Chrissy24601



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Everything Hurts, M/M, Post-Seine, lost chances, missed opportunies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-14
Updated: 2015-02-14
Packaged: 2018-03-12 20:11:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3353783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chrissy24601/pseuds/Chrissy24601
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>On this, what was likely October’s last sunny day, he didn’t see the light or hear the birds singing over the ruckus of the city. Passing a beggar woman, he put two coins into her palm, but her grateful smile didn’t warm him. Ever since that night in June his existence had been cold, and he still struggled to come to terms with the reason why.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Valjean remembers their whispered confessions at the barricade. It changed everything, but not enough.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Forever Autumn

**Author's Note:**

> Title and story inspired by Justin Hayward's "Forever Autumn". For those who know it, that should be warning enough. For those who don't...

Yellow and brown leaves rustled under his feet as he walked down the Parisian streets without goal or purpose. His broad frame, always a little bent for his lame leg still dragging his past after him, was now hunched even more. He seemed to carry an invisible burden on his shoulders. To the world he appeared a strong man, and more than once he had proven that he indeed possessed exceptional strength, but not anymore. Now Jean Valjean felt old, much older than his years.

On this, what was likely October’s last sunny day, he didn’t see the light or hear the birds singing over the ruckus of the city. Passing a beggar woman, he put two coins into her palm, but her grateful smile didn’t warm him. Ever since that night in June his existence had been cold, and he still struggled to come to terms with the reason why.

 

_“Kill me rather.”_

_The words were sharp, like the knife in his hand, and just as painful. “Go,” he hissed, pointing at the exit of the dark alley._

_But the policeman didn’t move. He stood only a step away, strangely calm for someone who had expected to be dead by now._

_“Javert, go! If those students come, they will kill us both!”_

_“That would be just,” Javert said simply._

_He shook his head. “It would be unnecessary. Me, my time is due soon, but I have no wish to see you dead.”_

_Javert arched a single eyebrow. “That is unwise. Let me leave here, and I will hunt you once more. When I catch you, only the guillotine awaits you.”_

_He lowered his gaze. “I know...”_

_“Then end it now.”_

_He froze. “What?”_

_“Do it. You have a knife, a gun. Take your pick and take your aim.”_

_To his amazement, Javert spread his arms in invitation._

_“No, I could never!”_

_Javert let his arms drop to his side again. “You would do me a kindness. You care about acts of mercy, don’t you?”_

_“Javert, no...”_

 

Again his chest constricted with the same stings in his chest he had felt then. At first he had thought it was because what Javert had asked of him went against the Lord, but then he had imagined Javert’s blood on his hands and his own had stilled in his veins. Even now the mere thought of seeing those piercing, dark eyes blank and lifeless made him sick to his stomach.

His pace slowed. The ache behind his sternum drowned out the painfully uneven cobbles beneath his feet. Staggering, he knocked his shoulder into a lamppost. His body stayed upright, but his mind was far away and his ringing ears only heard the plea he hadn’t wanted to acknowledge, but should have listened to.

 

_“You wish me to beg, Valjean?” Javert straightened. “Very well: please kill me.” His gaze was steady. “Please.”_

_As if in a dream he turned the blade in his hand; as if in a nightmare he plunged it forward. The knife shook violently when its tip caught in the mortar of the wall behind Javert, no more than a thumb’s length from the man’s side. When Javert realised, he became livid._

_“You are a thief! You hate me and all I stand for! Kill me, damn you!”_

_At once he let go of the knife and clasped his hand over the policeman’s mouth instead. “Go now, please,” he implored. “You are a good man, if too harsh on all including yourself. Go, leave here and live.”_

_Javert blinked, eyes wide with an emotion unfamiliar to them: confusion. They stared at him, asking an explanation that could not be put into words, even if there had been time to try. At a loss, he removed his hand and, just as the man tried to speak, he sealed Javert’s lips with his own._

 

“Watch where you’re going, old man!”

He started from his daydreams as a carriage thundered by. The air in its wake whipped about, taking the memory of the cherished kiss and blew it away. He licked his lips to save the sensation, but reality had already intruded.

Pulling the brim of his hat lower, he walked on. The cold air crept down his collar despite his cravat. He shivered, like he had at Javert’s touch.

 

_Javert’s mouth was rough but warm. Somehow this surprised him, but not long enough. Time was running short. Reluctantly he pulled back and whispered another ‘go’. Yet in the same instant, a strong hand grabbed his neck. He stiffened, afraid he had made a fatal mistake after all. But Javert’s fingers didn’t take hold of his clothes, but of him. The confusion in the man’s eyes spread to the rest of his face, along with a hint of what could only be hope._

_“How long?” Javert grunted under his breath._

_“Montreuil,” he whispered. “Since I saw you watch me lift that cart.”_

_Javert let out a soft, derisive chuckle. Long fingers tangled  roughly in white hair. Then a crooked smirk twisted his reddened lips. “Toulon. I have known since Toulon that you will be the death of me.” His head tilted closer again, but when they were so close that their breaths mingled between them, he hesitated. One heartbeat. Two. On the third, Javert released his grip and disappeared into the night._

 

He clenched his fists until his short nails left ridges in his calloused palms. At the time the unexpected confession had filled his heart and made him smile. Now he wished he had paid more attention, had remembered the man who spoke it. Javert had always meant every word he said, and always in the most literal sense.

The torn page of a newspaper playing in the autumn breeze accompanied his strides. He tried to ignore it, as he had tried to ignore the paper telling him that his hopes were in vain. The letters drifted before his mind’s eye. ‘A fit of mental aberration’, they read. God, he now understood what that meant!

His feet stopped where the pavement did. A busy intersection; the smell of wet stones and dirty water in his nostrils. He had come upon the river quay.

‘...found drowned under a boat...’ his memory recited once more.

An unnatural weariness claimed him, draining him of every last bit of energy. Between the traffic he stumbled across the street, for the first time with a clear intent. When he reached the parapet that lined the quayside, he clung to it like a lifeline. Its sturdy stones promised to support him and shield him from the river. But how could they when it had failed to save Javert? When _he_ had failed to save Javert.

 

_He had prepared himself for rejection when he asked Javert one last favour - there always seemed to be one last favour. Yet the policeman had said nothing except order the fiacre to the rue l’Homme Armé_

_During the ride, he tried to catch Javert’s gaze to learn what the man’s stoic silence entailed. He was unsuccessful. Recognising the streets they passed through and knowing they were approaching their destination, he made one last attempt. He reached out as much as he dared and brushed Javert’s leg with his fingertips._

_This, Javert acknowledged, but his expression remained blank, neither disapproving nor encouraging the touch._

_He meant to be bolder still, draw out a stronger reaction - any reaction - but then he remembered the filth clinging to every part of him and he grew cautious. But before he managed to recover his courage, the fiacre halted, and any chance they had jarred to a halt, too._

 

Leaning heavily on the parapet, his memory assaulted him and showed him how wrong he had been to dismiss Javert’s hesitance as disinterest. For weeks after reading the article that shattered his soul, he had blamed his extreme fatigue after saving Marius for his failure to recognise the subtle signs. Now he knew the reason was a far less noble one.

He had frozen in fear, nothing more. He had been too scared to follow when he had noticed Javert had vanished from his doorstep. Too scared to find that he was wrong; too scared, perhaps, to discover he was right. Whatever his excuse, the fact remained that he hadn’t acted. He had forsaken one so dear to him, taking a bath and sleeping instead. He had failed to help when he was the only one who could have done so. He had pushed his endurance to save Cosette’s beloved, but for his own, he had done nothing. Nothing but wait for Javert to return, not knowing that he never would...

The gentle wind blowing along the river caressed his face. It reminded him of the soft breeze back at the barricades, only now it was cold. Forever cold, like the waters below; like the waters that had taken Javert’s life after he had refused to.

His shoulders began to shake. So many lost chances. So many! Had he but known Javert had never been his enemy, how different their lives might have been. Had Javert known his feelings were returned, would he still have been as stern on himself and on others, or would he have allowed himself to be human?

To not be alone, but side by side if not together. To not suffer the terrible, crippling loneliness gripping him now.

Tears fell down his face. They fell for Javert, but also for Cosette. Cosette who would marry once Marius was recovered, and slip from his life like Javert had slipped away in the alley. Marriage would deprive him of her just as the river had deprived him of Javert. And him, all that was left for him was the autumn of his life, a dark void that stretched ahead while he waited for winter to arrive at last.

Not a long wait, if he chose to. His appetite for food and water had deserted him. He had grown accustomed to going without sustenance, as he had accustomed himself to a great many deprivations. Slowly his body grew weak, but his stomach no longer reminded him of its needs. Perhaps it, too, understood that these past months he had been already dead at heart.

Below him, the currents of the Seine boiled and rumbled. Grief pushed his mind to leap in, but his body did not follow. Dead inside though he was, he would not betray Monseigneur Myriel’s blessing so, or commit another sin by forsaking Cosette as he had Javert. The dear girl was not yet married and until she was, she depended on him. It was the least he could do. And the last.

He looked up. Through his tears, he saw Notre Dame’s bell towers shine in the sunlight. But their sight didn’t console him, no more than the threatening shape of the Palais de Justice to his right did. For what he had done - what he had failed to do - he did not deserve God’s grace or comfort. More than that, he did not want it. Why should he receive God’s grace, knowing that Javert never would? A final act of betrayal...

No, better they shared in His damnation what they couldn’t share in life. That was, as Javert would have said, only just.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to esteven for beta-ing, and for giving me the idea for this story in the first place. 
> 
> For those of you who like my fanfics: I'm currently writing a historic ghost novel with considerable Les Mis influences, called "Dark Eyes". I'm posting it online, much as I would a multi-chapter fic on AO3. There are 8 chapters online at this moment (30,000+ words) and a new one gets added every 2/3 weeks. All for free! 
> 
> If you would want to take a look, I'd be honoured: [you can read part #1 here.](http://www.chrischelser.com/novel-dark-eyes-preview/) For the rest of the story, just follow the instructions at the bottom of that page.


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